Following my comments about the iPhone VoLTE announcement I had an interesting conversation with Andy Huckridge from Gigamon, a company that provides intelligent traffic visibility networking solutions for enterprises, datacentres and service providers around the globe. An interesting concept that we discussed was the 'triple challenge of network transformation'. The three elements of this challenge are... more
There is an intrinsic value proposition to new gTLDs. They mean to give users fresh naming possibilities and provide more meaningful Internet addresses. And to do so at much reduced prices. Reduced prices? Really? This is where eyebrows start being raised. How so? Well before the advent of new gTLDs, few suffixes offered any real ability to differentiate. Users thus looked to the second level, not the top level, for a way to get their web addresses to stand out from the crowd. So began a vicious circle of value going to the limited number of meaningful second level names since at TLD level, the only string with any real equity was .COM. more
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington has advanced its wireless health care agenda by adopting rules that will enable Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs), low-power wideband networks consisting of multiple body-worn sensors that transmit a variety of patient data to a control device. MBANs provide a cost effective way to monitor every patient in a healthcare institution, so clinicians can provide real-time and accurate data which allows them to intervene if necessary. more
Social Science Research Network has published a paper examining "the large gaps and inconsistencies in current domain name law and policy" as compared with domain name use in the political context. The paper suggests that the current domain name policy is focused on protecting trademark uses of domain names against bad faith commercial 'cybersquatters' but does not deal with protecting use of domain names as part of the political process. more
Amazon has made an announcement that CloudFront, AWS WAF, and Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration have all been updated to support IPv6. more
The conflicting yet co-existing anxiety and enthusiasm in support of expanded Internet territory -- those new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) we have heard so much about -- may be misplaced. If the economic reports commissioned by ICANN are to be believed (non, nod, wink, wink), top level domains fall flat because they are either too tightly defined (.museum?) or lightly marketed (.aero?). Building a business plan to give a new gTLD the market and marketing reach it will need to succeed is a heavy lift. more
Various sources including South Korea's news agency Yonhap are reporting that a hacker group has threatened to launch a DDoS attack against seven South Korean banks unless they pay about 360 million won (US$315,000) in bitcoin. more
NANOG 62 was held at Baltimore from the 6th to the 9th October. These are my observations on some of the presentations that occurred at this meeting. .. One of the more memorable sides in this presentation was a reference to "map" drawn by Charles Minard in 1869 describing the statistics relating to the Napoleonic military campaign in Russia, and the subsequent retreat. more
Engineers in the Internet Engineering Task Force, in the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group, and elsewhere have been debating how to handle e-mail-server blocklists in an IPv6 network. Let's take a look at the problem here. We basically have three ways to address spam, in our goal of reducing the amount of spam in our inboxes... more
Ten years ago, I wrote an article that looked back on the developments within the Internet over the period from 1998 to 2008. Well, another ten years have gone by, and it's a good opportunity to take a little time once more to muse over what's new, what's old and what's been forgotten in another decade of the Internet's evolution... The evolutionary path of any technology can often take strange and unanticipated turns and twists. more
This is the second part of a multi-part series reported by ICANNfocus. This part discusses the congressional concerns regarding ICANN's governance of the Internet. "Since 1999 Congress has repeatedly expressed serious concerns regarding ICANN's governance of the internet. Congress has substantial responsibility for overseeing the key aspects of internet governance. Among its specific responsibilities, Congress has the duty to oversee implementation of the Department of Commerce's Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and contract with ICANN." more
The Metropolitan NY Chapter of the Internet Society continued its popular series of public events at the Jefferson Market library in Greenwich Village with a panel discussion on WHOIS policy, moderated by Danny Younger. This is a contentious issue, involving tradeoffs between privacy, anonymity, and accountability. more
In an attempt to appease the Governmental Advisory Committee, ICANN's New gTLD Program Committee directed ICANN staff to amend the Registry Agreement so that all New gTLD Registries will be required to include a provision in its Registry-Registrar Agreement that requires Registrars to include in their Registration Agreement a provision prohibiting Registered Name Holders from distributing malware, abusively operating botnets, phishing, piracy, trademark or copyright infringement, fraudulent or deceptive practices, counterfeiting or otherwise engaging in activity contrary to applicable law, and providing (consistent with applicable law and any related procedures) consequences for such activities including suspension of the domain name. more
Brokenness refers to the situation whereby a website is made accessible in dual stack, meaning both IPv4 and IP6, using records referred to as A's for IPv4 and quad A's for IPv6. Some end-users can experience slower access to the website or in some rarer instances no access at all. Brokenness is mostly attributable to older versions of the Mac Os operating system... The brokenness issue has been very well described by Eric Vyncke... more
The proposed new European Union (EU) Artificial Intelligence Act has been extolled in the media as a bold action by a major legislative body against the perceived dangers of emerging new computer technology. The action presently consists of an initial proposal for a Regulation with annexes from 2021, plus recent Amendments adopted on 14 June. This regulatory behemoth exists entwined among a multitude of other recent EU major regulations... more
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